Giants pitch-slap Phillies on the field and show them class in the stands too

San Francisco Giants fans cheer on the Giants winning 3-0 during game against Philadelphia Phillies in the the National League Championship Series Game 3, AT&T Park in San Francisco, Calif. on Tuesday, October 19, 2010. (Josie Lepe/Mercury News)

Even before the game started, Michael Allen's face was red. This had nothing to do with the 3-0 thrashing his Philadelphia Phillies were about to receive from the Giants -- or even with the Schmidt beer that often flows like mother's milk in Phillies fans. Wearing a red and white wig, red and white face paint and a Phils jersey, Allen was a stranger from a strange land at AT&T Park Tuesday.

"Being from Philadelphia, I fear no man," he said. "The only person I fear is God."

No deity could possibly have improved upon the sellout crowd that turned out for Game 3 of the NLCS, where the Giants not only pitch-slapped the hated Phils, but gave an orange and black object lesson in crowd control to the cheesesteak rabble in Philadelphia.

"If you're not giving a good effort in San Francisco, the fans get on you," said Giants broadcaster Mike Krukow, a former Giant who spent part of his career pitching in Philadelphia. "But the intensity level of hate here is probably 30 percent of what it is in Philly. People here can head to the beach, or go up to wine country and calm their anxieties. I just think they have nothing else to do in Philly."

All afternoon, the difference between the Bay Area's mellow mob and Philly fans who once booed Santa Claus was apparent. Giants fan Beau Walker dressed in a Giants jersey, his hair transformed to an orange mohawk, with eyebrows and goatee also tinted orange. "Playoff baseball," he explained. "Gotta step it up a notch."

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Even the ballparks stood in stark counterpoint: The Giants play in a park named after a company that quietly drops your phone calls; the Phillies play in a park sponsored by a bank that forecloses on people's homes.

"In Philadelphia, they mortgage homes to buy season tickets," said Mitch Williams, a former Phillies relief pitcher known as "Wild Thing" in his playing days, now a broadcaster. "It's not a social event, it's a way of life. They're a blue-collar town, they work hard for their money, and if they don't see a good performance, they're going to let you know."

A way of life

Conceding that many of his fellow Phillies phan-atics back at Citizens Bank Park often "act like idiots" and are frequently "out of control," Allen nevertheless insisted he hadn't come to San Francisco seeking confrontation. It seemed unlikely -- hell, it was unthinkable -- that any Giants fan attempting the same stunt in Philadelphia would survive similarly unmolested.

This season alone, one Phillies fan was shot with a Taser for running onto the field, and another was sentenced to prison after sticking his finger down his throat and purposely vomiting on a nearby fan and his 11-year-old daughter.

As recently as Game 1 of this series, another Schmidt-faced Phils fan was unable to halt the momentum of his bloated beer gut, throwing up onto the field. Video of the incident was later removed from YouTube by Major League Baseball, now the only sports league known to vigorously enforce its vomit copyright.

When Steve Carlton broke baseball's all-time strikeout record for the Phils in 1983, the hometown fans gave him a long standing ovation. But when Carlton walked a batter later that same inning, the same fans loudly booed him.

Shocking behavior

San Francisco crowds occasionally give opposing players a hard time, but in Philadelphia it's often the hometown players who feel the most heat.

Following a last-place finish in 1959, Phillies' manager Eddie Sawyer was taunted so mercilessly by his own fans that he quit one game into the following season, reasoning, "I'm 49 years old, and I'd like to live to be 50."

"We're nice," Giants fan David Jones said while munching on a hot dog during batting practice Tuesday. "We don't clap when somebody throws at a batter's head."

His friend Terry Johnson was no fan of the signs that popped up in stands during Game 1, telling Giants ace Tim Lincecum "FIX YOUR TEETH," and calling him "HIPPY TRASH." "I'm shocked by the behavior in Philadelphia," Johnson said. Shocked!

The contrast between Giants fans and their Philadelphia counterparts has been evident throughout the series. Bay Area fans waved their orange Homer Hankies at AT&T Park when their team was in the field, while in Philadelphia, the fans swirled white towels that made it more difficult for opposing batters to see the baseball against that background.

But sometimes the differences were more apparent than real. At the Giants' 10-year-old park, fans could pick up a six-piece Ebi Nigiri dinner for $14.25 at Mashi's Sushi Bistro on the food concourse, while at the Phillies' ballpark, which opened in 2004, the grazing grounds include a full panoply of artery-clogging cheesesteaks. But, in a shocking upset, the Phillies' stadium was voted the No. 1 vegetarian ballpark by PETA for the past four years. PETA!

On the whole, however, fan animus -- fanimus! -- defines the City of Brotherly Loathe.

Last season, umpires had to halt a Phils game with St. Louis because fans were targeting Cardinals players with the laser pointer dots used as aiming devices by snipers.

But after the Giants' 3-0 victory at home on Tuesday, it was the Phillies who were wearing bull's-eyes on their backs. And the home field advantage suddenly loomed larger than ever.

Contact Bruce Newman at 408-920-5004.

PHILLY FANATICS

In 1968, the Philadelphia Eagles were playing out the string of a 2-12 season when a snowstorm prevented a rented Santa Claus and his float from making it in time for a planned halftime Christmas pageant. Spotting 20-year-old Frank Olivo in the stands, who had worn his own corduroy Santa suit to the game as a goof, team officials hustled him onto the field. As the band launched into "Here Comes Santa Claus," many of the 54,535 Philly fans booed Santa and began pelting him with snowballs.

In 1997, so many unruly fans were being arrested at Eagles games that the city set up a courtroom and jail inside Veterans Stadium, dubbed "Eagles Court," rather than transporting so many people covered in beer, blood and, of course, vomit to central booking.

Philadelphia fans enraged with St. Louis Cardinals rookie J.D. Drew, who had refused to sign with the Phils after they drafted him, threw batteries at him in the outfield.

After Dallas Cowboys star receiver Michael Irvin suffered a career-ending neck injury against the Eagles in 1999, he lay motionless on the field for a long time as medical personnel worked on him. This produced so much raucous applause from Eagles fans -- who cheered even more boisterously when a stretcher was brought onto the field -- that the Philadelphia Daily News headline the next day read, "Unspeakable, even for us."